Tag Archives: dungeness

Golden Gate Bridge from the Ft Baker Pier (dungie being returned to the ocean)

YES IM GOING WITH THE SAME JOKE AGAIN

This is going to be a compilation post of the last two crabbing trips I went on. Both times we went out to the Fort Baker Pier to do some (successful!) crabbing. I fell behind on blogging again, so…its what ya’ll are getting.

Its been awhile. Weather’s been not so hot, so I haven’t gotten out much. Maybe only once or twice since the last update? There’s a poke pole trip I made a little while ago on 11/22/2014:

You can maaaybe see the small shark I walked next to around 4:18, but the glare off the water sorta messed with the GoPro. If I’d known I’d have scooped it up in my bucket to get a better picture. Figured since I was filming I’d have it… guess not.

Some kind of shark?

If you’re able to identify this by this crappy picture alone, please let me know! I haven’t a clue what it was, but it was cute :3

Anyhow, tide was a -0.8 ft. or so, peaking around 4:30 with a sunset at 5. Timing worked out okay. Was right after a long rain storm. I was supposed to take some coworkers out on a poke poling tour, but rain was forecasted. Hadn’t been out since Sept. though, so I decided I’d go rain or shine.

Couldn’t reach my favorite spot. That’s the reason I was wading out into the open water. There’s a little bar you can follow that’s shallower than following right along the jetty.

Anywho, did okay. Not great, but made do with the few spots that were available to me:

But let’s be honest. I’m not a huge crab fan. For those of you following me, you’ll note that I pretty much have only 1-2 posts on crabbing…

But after lots of sighing and debating, I loaded up one crab cage Friday evening. Wound up needing the entire Friday night to prepare since I was planning to fish as well. Wound up not being ready until about 2am…had to be up at 3am to drive & eat breakfast anyway so I just stayed up…

We landed in Half Moon Bay around 5/5:30 am. Packed everything down and paddled off! Was so foggy, glad we had lights. We could hear boats cruisin’ around us long before we could see them. We headed out to the first stop, somewhere around the triangle.

Its been storming out here for the past week, though its finally cleared up these last few days. Really wanted to go fishing starting the first day of the storm, I really need to keep a better eye on weather. See the post on PFIC here. Usually fish are out feeding in force before storms. They’ve got to stock up on food before hiding during most of the parts of the storm. And boy was it a storm.

20-30mph winds most of last week. I headed out Wed or something (its late, and I haven’t gone to bed before 3am yet this week…) last week to try my luck after work when it was only 80% chance of rain. Didn’t realize 24mph winds were strong enough to prevent breathing if you weren’t careful which direction you were facing. I decided I’d better just take a short walk and call it a night. Noone around, obviously, and the swell was pretty crazy for inside the harbor. I wonder what a fish does if it finds itself too far from a cave to hide in when it starts getting rough?

Talked to someone who contacted me through this blog and answered some questions to the best of my abilities. Didn’t hear back on whether they made it out Saturday or not, am curious to hear how the crabbing was for them if they did indeed make it out on the south jetty. If you guys are reading, please leave a comment or send me an email! :]

Anyhow, went home and threw my bait in the freezer to use on the weekend. Looked like this past Sunday would suddenly clear up for a few hours in the evening. Couldn’t help myself come Saturday when it cleared up slightly, and headed out around 12pm for a few hours. Really becoming bothered by how many people are showing up there. Not sure if its just because of crabbing season, or its just becoming more well known, but there are quite a few crabbers these days. Not as crowded as the day after thanksgiving, but still very little room to crab if that’s what you wanted to do. On the other hand there seemed to be quite a few crab around. Most people had 2-3 from what I saw. Someone even had maybe 3 or 4 large dungeness crab.

Only pro to having so many people around is you sometimes see really weird things. Like this woman who pulled up a live shrimp

Just got back from HMB then Pacifica Pier. Read Pacifica Pier doesn’t open until 4am, so I figured I’d go hit up the HMB pier while waiting until 4am. Was playing LoL until 12am anyway, wasn’t really going to get much rest.

Made it out to the pier and was surprised to see 3 other people there already. They informed me there was nothing but babies so far. We set about crabbing and I eventually pulled in 3 rock crabs. All 4-5″, nothing special. 2 red, 1 brown. Let them all go. Only saw 2 baby crabs, not a single dungie though. Not sure if the dungeness move out of the sheltered area once they mature, or if there were too many poachers. Anyhow, I chatted with the other group a bit and they mentioned Pacifica Pier sometimes opens early (3am).

Went out to Pacifica Pier today for a few hours (1230-23-ish?) to take a look at how the crabs are shaping up for this year’s crab opener (on Sat.). Tossed out Sofa King snares.

Completely spaced on it last time I mentioned them. They’re made by a guy who goes by Sofa King over on PFIC (Pier Fishing in California) and are supposedly the best. Now that I’ve used them a few times I can attest to that fact. Normal snares (like danielsons: v1, v2) aren’t even on the same level. First of all they’re large and bulky. Its less about a large hunk of bait, and more about using the right kind of bait. Crabs will only be able to claw at the outside edge anyway.
Sofa King snares are about half as tall as v1, about the same height as v2. However they’re much slimmer. This translates to soaring through the sky smoother (more aerodynamic) and coming back in with much less effort (less drag through the water). Another side note is that the snare itself is just lighter if you don’t need to stuff it that full of bait. Using 1/3-1/4 of the amount of bait helps a ton. You’re going to be reeling those suckers in every 3-10 minutes depending on the day.Continue reading Testing the waters! (Pacifica)→

So Friday 9/7 I ran out to the South Half Moon Bay jetty to see if I could catch some rock fish off the jetty and maybe some rock crabs for a nice meal. Turns out I couldn’t find either, and instead found a ton of dungeness crabs.